Bing FAIL

Bing FAIL:This will be a short post, like the headline already suggests. You know, after the disastrous performance of Wolfram Alpha which was falsely hailed as Google competition I’m not really in the mood to rant again. I will just show you one example.

Bing simply doesn’t work.

The first thing I do to test a new search engine is always some vanity searches as in these cases I simply know what the most relevant results are. So I searched for SEO 2.0 on Bing. Guess what?

SEO 2.0 was nowhere to be found on Bing using the phrase SEO 2.0

In Google this blog is at #1 and #2 for SEO 2.0 but on Bing it’s not in the top 50. You get a lot of crap results instead mixed with some good ones but the most important pages are nowhere to be found.

So it’s not that I was banned on Bing or something. You have to search for “SEO 2.0″ using quotes to find the SEO 2.0 blog. So Bing knows that this page exists but assigns a completely wrong authority to it. In contrast you’ll find a page offering

Guaranteed seo 2.0 first page rank top ten placement and ranking in …

at #1 for SEO 2.0 – So not a authority blog with regular postings about SEO 2.0 or in fact the resource that popularized SEO 2.0 ranks but a second rate static page which was optimized on page for a whole group of random SEO related keywords.

What more can I say? I’m not a Google fan boy but Bing is a huge FAIL. It’s as simple as that.

Update January 30th, 2013: I now rank at #1 for [SEO 2.0] on Bing. So they fixed their algorithm apparently.

I searched for myself on BING. And my own blog didn’t appear. Another waste of time from Microsoft. What’s the point of building a better Google? Have they not heard about the better mouse trap? it doesn’t exist.

Uhh Search again my friend your number three… don’t forget the service is in beta till next week…I think this article is a little full of yourself.. Just because the engine doesn’t index like Google. there fore its no good doesn’t sound like a fair argument to me.

Thanks for the feedback people. Yes indeed I deliberately hate Microsoft and falsify screenshots using my advanced Photoshop skills.
Or, more aptly, Bing fixed it. I get both the SEO 2.0 blog (indeed at #3) and the Mixx group on the first page.

Nonetheless #1 is still crap. Also #2 does not deserve it either. #8, the SEO 2.0 Digital Asset Optimization definition could be at one, as it was there before I started this blog and is probably the best definition written thus far.

I did a post on our blog the other day about the new searches. Let’s be honest – new searches are always going to struggle now that Google has such a hold of the population, especially as to be different they have to try something new which invariiably will upset some users.

In my opinion, Bing is ok. But that’s it. It really doesn’t offer anything particular new. Although Wolfram and Cuil have gone down the drain a bit I do think they are much more innovative and interesting than Bing. It will be interesting to see how it develops, but for me Bing lacks any kind of X-Factor.

I agree with domjoel. Google did not gain fame overnight. So Bing must also be going through the same thing. Let us wait and see.

VaibhavJune 12, 2009 at 03:32 ·

The sites always ranked a bit differently on Google, Yahoo and MSN. Most of us just care about the Google rankings so build our sites the Google way, use the nofollow tag the Google way..overall we just concentrate on getting to the top on Google so no wonder our sites rank well on Google and SEO 2.0 is at #1 at Google too!
Now if that doesn’t happen on a new search engine – BING (new version of MSN Live Search basically), doesn’t mean its a fail and doesn’t work. Yeah we know you are cool and you know your stuff but this post was totally uncool dude! You gotta be patient and see if really paid off -you are at #3 now aren’t you? :) I guess its time to take this post down as it just looks like an outburst of the frustration filling you up! MSN rankings were always screwed up and will be but at least give them a chance to fix their act :)

Eduardo AmadoJune 25, 2009 at 05:14 ·

I too tried to use Bing and couldn’t. The truth is that Google is the most used search engine because it is the BEST.

The search engine game is not about innovating, it’s about giving the results that people want.

Too bad, I love their interface though… But I do get good searches at my first try of Bing.

I’ve read somewhere before, I forgot the blog/site (sorry), that Bing allows direct watching of video on its SERP without storing a history of the link/site. At first I didn’t care but when I read that it’s not good for children because they can easily watch adult movies! Even if parents block adult sites, kids can still watch it using Bing’s SERP. Is this true? I have not seen it (yet)…

Anthony WebsolutionsJuly 9, 2009 at 15:37 ·

No doubt Google is #1 search engine. To snatch the #1 position Microsoft has to go miles. Bing is still in beta version and they are working on it. All we can say at this juncture is wait and watch

John CJuly 20, 2009 at 21:18 ·

why does this not surprise me? microsoft’s attempt at trying to take marketshare away from google is going to be another waste of $$. for me, it’s google all the way…

(BTW, anyone else have problems with things like arrow keys, home/end, and pasting not working in the text box here? It used to work for me, but then stopped a few weeks ago. It only fails in Firefox (but does so with FF on both Linux and Windows); Opera (again on Windows and Linux I’m pretty sure) works, as does IE.

anonSeptember 12, 2009 at 12:03 ·

I just searched bing and seo blog search appears fine. I think passing judgement on an evolving product is premature. You can argue that they fixed their links seeing this blog or you can argue that they are constantly tweeking their serch result algorithm to improve.. either ways I see bing as a great product. I am personnaly very happy with bing, its results and layout. Google news is still better though.

Sydney MonisSeptember 29, 2009 at 15:06 ·

Bing is vulnerable, new and just too far away from being a close competitor to Google. Its results are not just irrelevant but also crappy.

I hope the failure of a vanity search was not what drove your opinion of the Bing search results!
From my own perspective, I quite like the fact that Bing ranks so differently to Google. If we got exactly the same rankings back, it would be pointless to have Bing and Google and Yahoo!
But I guess my own usage of Bing (less than 5% of my searches) is indication that it doesn’t really help me find the things I’m looking for in the way I’m used to.